What Christmas trees looked like 100 years

[Texasgal]

ago.

Very cool photos! The link won't let me post an intro.

http://oldphotoarchive.com/stories/what-christmas-trees-looked-like-100-years-ago-20-photos

[Laffy Kat]

1. I see fire hazards!

Each and every one. Still pretty though.

[Texasgal]

2. Yes, the candle lit trees

freak me out!

[Lisa0825]

3. Fascinating pics! :-) nt

[duffyduff]

4. The Charlie Brown tree would have fit right in. n/t

[PufPuf23]

5. Back in the 1950s one of my grandmothers would have a tree with candles.

The candle holders were very old and she also had very old ornaments.

We would string popcorn and cranberries in preparation.

The tree would also have electric lights.

My grandparents would have a day where we would decorate the tree and have dinner and all that and the tree would be lit for that evening with candles but after that the candles and candle holders were ornaments. That (maternal) grandmother was born in 1891 and the old ornaments and candle holders were from her mother.

Where she lived most of her adult life was accessed only by mule, horse, or foot when they moved there to manage a small store. My grandfather had been a mule packer and she a book keeper for the company that ran the mule trains and owned the store they came to operate in 1910. The road construction arrived in 1921 and they then opened and ran a hunting and fishing resort until the late 1950s. The first place I lived was that resort and we had electricity by diesel generator. The power lines came in 1956 and we moved several miles from the small village to the property where my father was born and raised, newly crossed by the power poles.

[senseandsensibility]

7. Very interesting.

Thanks for sharing this history with us. Where was this?

[PufPuf23]

8. Lower Klamath River and Salmon River region of extreme northwest California inland

from Redwood National Park.

The locality is within the Six Rivers and Klamath National Forests and corresponds to the Karuk Tribe ancestral area.

Edit to add: We also would string toyon and or madrone berries (that grew wild) along with or in replacement of cranberries.

[applegrove]

9. The tinsel they used - it had something very dangerous in it like lead

But boy did the tinsel make for beautiful trees.

[eppur_se_muova]

10. Yep, basically lead foil. I melted some down one time.

Result ? A nice, dense chunk of lead. Maybe it had a little tin in it, I don't know.

[smirkymonkey]

11. What lovely photos! Thank you for sharing these!

I can't believe they really put lit candles on the trees though. I wonder what the statistics were on holiday house fires back then!